Olivia flushed. And she was almost relieved when one of the men in the back focused on Max. Almost—because any questions would mean he was going to be telling the tall tales they’d agreed on.
“You said you were on a business trip to New York. What business?” one of the men in the back demanded in a challenging voice. It was Troy Masters, the most successful member of the reunion committee. Olivia knew that Troy had graduated from Princeton and used his connections to become a rich money market manager. She also knew that he liked being thought of as the guy who’d made it big.
“Financial advisor,” Max answered, using the cover story that the Rockfort men had worked out for him. They had also quickly constructed an online background for him that would substantiate the claim.
“I might be able to use your services,” Mark Tate allowed.
“We can make an appointment in a few weeks,” Max answered easily. “Olivia and I are both taking some time off to look for a place to live.”
“In New York?”
“No. A place where we can get away.”
Within minutes, Max had introduced himself to everybody in the room. And as five more people arrived, Linda told them who he was. As Olivia watched him interact, it was obvious he knew how to work a crowd, how to get people to like him. The women were practically eating out of his hand as she watched them flirt with the handsome new fiancé of their former classmate. But despite the female attention, he was able to quickly make friends with the guys, too.
Even Perry Palmer. Olivia had always considered him a space cadet. A few minutes ago she’d heard him telling Linda that he had his PhD and was doing research at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. Well, good for him, she thought before her attention switched back to Max.
She watched the people’s expressions close up a bit when he steered the conversation down a less pleasant avenue—the one that had brought her down from New York. “I guess you all heard about what happened to Angela Dawson,” he said when the noise level in the room dropped a little. “Pretty scary.”
The rest of the conversations stopped dead. The sound of Ben Campbell crunching on a potato chip was the only noise in the room.
The guy Max was talking to, Joe Gibson, filled the sudden quiet. Tall and thin with a shock of thick sandy hair, Joe had been the president of the business club. Now an insurance agent in Ellicott City, he appeared to have combed his hair to the side to conceal a rapidly retreating hairline.
“Yeah, I read about it in the Baltimore Sun. It’s a damn shame. She had such potential.”
“You were friends with her?” Max asked.
He gave a little shake of his head. “She was more the all-work-and-no-play type. At least after high school.”
Olivia gave Joe an assessing look. Back in high school, he hadn’t had much respect for women. She suspected that hadn’t changed.
As some of the classmates lowered their voices and speculated about the murder, Olivia watched Max observing the members of the group without appearing to be particularly watchful. Again he used a natural opportunity to widen the discussion. “You remember Gary Anderson?” he inquired.
“Wasn’t he found in a drainage ditch?” Jill Cole asked with a little shudder. She had been heavy in high school. Olivia noticed that she’d slimmed down considerably. Good for her.
Max nodded.
“What does that have to do with Angela?” Tommy Larson asked in the aggressive voice she remembered from ten years ago. “It was in winter on a freezing day. Gary’s car crapped out on him… He was walking to get help and slipped.”
“You know a lot about it,” Max observed drily.
“I knew him. Not well. And the only thing I know about the accident was what I read in the paper—or what people were saying at the funeral,” Tommy added quickly.
Max kept his expression open. “I saw both their names in your yearbook when I was looking to see who might be at the meeting tonight. Isn’t that a little strange, for two people in your class to, uh, end up dead under questionable circumstances?” He shrugged casually, but Olivia knew he was carefully cataloging everyone’s reaction. She also noticed that he hadn’t mentioned Patrick Morris, who had died in his house from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was probably because Max didn’t want to make it look like he was focused on deaths in the reunion class.
Still, she knew he’d already done that when Brian Cannon demanded, “Are you trying to make something of that?” His chilled voice cut through the previously friendly atmosphere.
“Uh, no,” Max answered. “But I was thinking that maybe you all ought to stay aware of your surroundings.”